School system discouraging inclusion, ADCS warns

The children’s services leaders’ body is calling for education to be overhauled so that it “is about more than just the acquisition of qualifications” and “inclusive of all learners”.  

Fragmentation of education in recent years is a chief concern, with schools run by multi-academy trusts instead of councils, leading to a system “less rooted in place” and failing to “reward inclusivity”, warns the ADCS.

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The scrapping of the government’s Schools White Paper last year has also dented efforts to improve inclusion. The ADCS urges ministers to revisit the plans around creating “a more coherent education system” especially around standards for academy trusts and giving councils powers to compel state funded schools to admit a child if it has space.

This shift in balance from school to council “offers greater transparency and efficiency”, adds the ADCS.

Without this overhaul the government’s SEND and alternative provision improvement plan, to improve support for children, could falter as it relies on wider reform of the education system where “schools, regardless of type, are incentivised to support all children who would benefit from remaining in mainstream education”.

Among recommendations is for “inclusion profiles” to be a feature of future school inspections “to ensure schools are held to account for how accurately they reflect their local child population and therefore meet the needs of their local community”.

Schools also need to be “appropriately funded”, including for staff training, to ramp up support for a wide range of children. Funding cuts have hindered inclusivity further, such as the withdrawal in 2017 of the £600m Education Services Grant, which supported inclusion and extracurricular activities, the ADCS warns.  

Inclusion is also being hampered by a lack of uniformity in school admission policies, which is leading to schools prioritising academic attainment leaving disadvantaged children “marginalised from mainstream education”, says the ADCS.

According to University of Bristol research, nine out of 10 schools have the power to set their own admission arrangements.

👀Today ADCS publishes a new policy paper setting a future vision for the education system 👀 pic.twitter.com/ssGlC34dsX

— 🌈Updates from ADCS (@ADCStweets) November 29, 2023

Reform is also needed to improve attendance, which has not returned to pre-pandemic levels, according to the ADCS. It wants to see more research into the links between poor attendance and disadvantage and a more inclusive curriculum that offers a wide array of enrichment learning and focus on vocational subjects and the arts.

Improved funding for early years is another recommendation needed to improve social mobility and address emerging needs early.

But the ADCS says that both early years and further education “have suffered due to a sustained policy focus on the school system and an absence of both a long-term strategy and adequate funding”.

“We urgently need government to set out its national vision for the schools system and how it plans to support all learners, whatever their needs, to achieve their full potential,” said ADCS president John Pearce.

“This must be backed by sufficient long-term funding from government and there must be a strong role for the local authority at its heart, as leader of place.

“If we continue as we are, with an incoherent and fragmented schools system, a high stakes accountability system, a narrow academic curriculum and insufficient funding across the schools, early years and further education sectors we do children a grave disservice, damaging their life chances and this country’s future economy.”